The United Launch Alliance said Wednesday that it plans to return its Vulcan rocket to service on Nov. 13, nine months after a solid rocket booster anomaly sent the company’s 2026 launch plan into oblivion.
The Return to Flight mission will launch 40 satellites for the Amazon Leo broadband constellation, the first of 38 Vulcan flights that Amazon has booked to deploy the bulk of its network. The mission will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and ULA said the launch date is still subject to range approval.
The launch is critical for ULA after nozzle failures on the solid rocket boosters occurred on two of the new flagship rocket’s first four missions, most recently during a flight in February. In both cases, the rocket overcame nozzle failure and completed its mission, but officials at the U.S. Space Force, ULA’s primary customer, lost confidence in Vulcan.
Space Force officials will closely monitor Vulcan’s return mission. The Pentagon has entrusted ULA’s Vulcan rocket for about half of its major launches through the early 2030s. The Space Force certified the Vulcan rocket for national security launches in 2025 and then flew two missions on Vulcan before grounding it after the booster incident in February.
make progress
In a statement, the United Launch Alliance said engineers had made “great progress” in understanding the booster anomaly that occurred in February. Engineers “identified several potential causes that were mitigated through design and process improvements to the nozzle,” ULA said.
“To support our customers, this upcoming launch will utilize the improved nozzle design and additional testing and analysis will continue alongside the mission,” ULA said. “Flying the improved design will provide ULA with valuable flight data that validates these improvements and provides the most beneficial path to supporting all of our customers.”
